What the Pro-Bush blogs are saying about the debate:

[yesthattom]

Oxblog:

“ONE LINE ON THE DEBATE: Kerry won. Hands down. By a lot. That’s all for now.”

PoliPundit says:

“I think most people’s first impression, is that Kerry was strong and forceful, while Bush was less effective, more hesitant.”

“I’ve been watching the debate for five minutes now. Despite my partisan inclinations, I have to admit that Kerry has won this debate. And not just in the high-school debate-coach sense of the word.Kerry comes off as the prosecutor accusing Bush of incompetence. Bush comes off as his Meet-The-Press, press-conference version - dogged, arrogant and unlikable. Kerry will get a significant bounce in the head-to-head poll numbers from this debate.”

Powerline Blog says:

“But, candidly, I don’t think it went that well for the President. I think Kerry helped himself tonight. He came across as a credible candidate, and he was usually on the offensive...I think Kerry made headway, and there is plenty of material there for the mainstream media to proclaim the beginning of Kerry’s comeback...On the whole, though, I think Kerry helped himself tonight.”

Freepers say:

“While we were all hoping that Bush would defeat Kerry handidly tonight and put the election out of reach, we can’t be that upset with tonight. Kerry may have even had a slight win...”

Winds of Change:

“Kerry did well in terms of his persona; I went in expecting a pompous windbag and he wasn’t one. Bush did less well in persona; fragmented, repetitive...”

...from dailykos and others...

Comments

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

The Bush campaign is claiming Bush won, but only Fox is supporting this. My quotes are from Blogs, which I'm sure will receive retribution from BC04 soon.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I'm hearing that debates aren't a zero-sum game and Bush did what he set out to do. And I have no doubt that Rush et al will have no problem filling three hours of radio time with clips illustrating Bush's masterful statesmanship and Kerry's continued pattern of treason against liberty and goodness.

But it's nice to see that less partisan people saw the debate the same way I did. Thanks for collecting those.

[penk.livejournal.com]

I've heard pretty much the same thing. The blog I read to keep up on the righties is http://www.jayreding.com/ , and he admits as well that Bush dropped the ball badly.. Yay :)

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

A poll on MSN.com last nite with over 440k respondents showed 70% believed Kerry was the winner of the debate. Pretty clear to me, whatever Rush or Fox "news" wants to blather on about.

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

Oh, and a CNN.com poll with nearly 800k respondents I just saw had 71% saying Kerry was the winner. Ya just can't argue with those numbers.

[cos]

There's nobody less partisan than the freepers!

What did Bush set out to do? I can't see anything positive he did for himself in that debate.